The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for detecting people waiting in an elevator hall, and more particularly to such apparatus and method which reduces possible errors in the detection of the number of people waiting which errors occur due to an overlap of fields of view of a plurality of image pickup units.
A conventional technique directed to a device which detects the number of people waiting for elevators in an elevator hall, using a plurality of image pickup units, is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication JP-A 2-249877.
In this technique, two kinds of image processing means are provided to pick up the image of the elevator hall without dead angles to detect the number of waiting people. Usually, an elevator controller controls the operation of the elevator on the basis of the result of such detection.
The conventional technique does not allow for a possible error in the detection occurring due to an overlap of fields of view of a plurality of image pickup units and cannot correctly detect the number of waiting people, disadvantageously.